Chapter XXXVI: Conclusion

And now, approaching the conclusion of the whole matter, the end of what I feel to have been an important task, while the way in which it has been performed is an open question, I ask myself, "What is likely to be the effect of this book upon the minds of those for whom it has been written? Will they think that the British Mercantile Marine is a profession which they should exert all their influence to keep their young friends and relatives out of, or will they feel, as I do, that, in spite of all its obvious drawbacks, it should be by no means neglected as an opening for enterprising adventurous youngsters, the right stuff of which British sailors are made?"

I have been compelled, in truth, to say many hard things of the Merchant Service, but there is such a thing as speaking the truth in love. And as I love the Merchant Service with all my heart, and desire most earnestly to see it flourish and prosper more and more, I am the more anxious that nothing I have said will be taken as spoken in a carping or pessimistic spirit. I want to see the Mercantile Marine purged of the foreigner, not because I hate the foreigner of any nation, but because this peculiarly and particularly maritime nation of ours cannot afford, in the face of the undoubted hatred manifested towards it by practically every continental people, to allow the life of its citizens to be dependent upon the good-will of aliens. In spite of what not only continental writers, but many of our own scribes, may and do say about our unctuous hypocrisy, there can be no doubt that the chief characteristic of the British nation to-day is its careless magnanimity. Warned by innumerable writers of the risks we wilfully expose ourselves to, we go on with a good-natured shrug of the shoulders in the same reckless fashion. We welcome, as if we were in a new colony with millions of acres undeveloped, with all our resources at their spring-tide, a continuous flood of aliens to our shores and in our ships. We not only give them all the advantages we ourselves possess, but actually strain a point, wherever possible, in their favour. Finding no reciprocity anywhere, no feeling of kindliness for all our generous treatment of aliens, we are unmoved, nor is our policy, or want of policy, altered. And this grand air of indifference, which is not assumed, but real, is to the last degree galling to our continental neighbours. Their attitude becomes daily more difficult to understand. Rejoicing to see how we are, as they firmly believe, exposing all our most vital, most vulnerable points to their attack, both in matters of war and peace, they are yet almost frantic with rage at what they are pleased to call our abominable insular insolence, our refusal to be frightened of them. I do not pretend to justify our insouciant attitude, I only note its universal presence.

In the matter of our Mercantile Marine, I feel sure that we are heaping up for ourselves a most awful mountain of disaster in the way in which we are allowing it to become really a foreign service. One thing we could do, and should do at once--apply the same rule to the Merchant Service that is in force in the Royal Navy. There no alien, unless he has become naturalized, can hold any post whatever. It sounds a small reform; but it would have, I am sure, the most far-reaching effects. At present it is quite possible--indeed, it will be found actually the case in some instances--for a British ship to be wholly manned by foreigners, from the master to the boy--sailing ships, that is. Foreigners in steam are mostly confined to the crew; and, as I have said before, I know of no instance where foreign engineers are employed in our ships at all. Because, in the first place, they, our home-bred engineers, are the best in the world; and, secondly, because they have behind them the support of a great Trade Union, that--although I do not suppose many sea-going engineers are active members of it--would speedily make its voice heard and its influence felt, if any attempt was made to bring in foreign engineers.

For reasons which I hope I have made abundantly clear in the preceding pages, such support cannot be found for the seaman--that is, for the foremast hand. But the officers might do much more than they are doing. There are several societies for the mutual help and defence of Mercantile Marine officers, some doing excellent work, others doing scarcely anything at all. I will not particularize, for that would do no good. I will merely say that if all these societies would amalgamate, would all pull together and enlist the sympathy and active support of shipmasters and officers, retired as well, they would be a body extremely powerful in their influence on behalf of the best interests of their profession. Such a body, composed of serious-thinking, well-informed, and trustworthy men in full touch with the subject, could do more in one year for the upraising and nationalizing of the Merchant Service than will ever be done by isolated efforts, however earnest. For their own sakes they would not neglect the foremast hand; in the best interests of the service they could not. Even by the present local efforts of some of these societies much good has been done, enough to show what might be done were they all united.

As to the ships themselves, perhaps enough has been said already to indicate the transition stage through which we are passing. For while it is undoubtedly true that the sailing ship is doomed to extinction in the near future, at the present day there is still an enormous amount of sailing tonnage afloat. Thousands of good seaworthy sailing ships still come and go between distant shores, doing good work, not only in earning profits for their owners, but in rearing sailors for the British Mercantile Marine. But we are not building any more to replace them. We have come to the conclusion that the future of sea-traffic is to the steamer. Doubtless many ship-owners, in the present abnormally inflated state of the coal market, are sighing over the fact that they are so dependent upon the black dirty stuff for the due working of their ships, and vainly wishing for the days to return when the clean free winds furnished all the motive power needed. But we cannot go back again to sail. Even the Norwegian timber droghers are taking to steam, and that is a portent indeed. It is the beginning of the end. The end will come, for all sailing ships still making long voyages, with the opening of the Panama Canal. Then, at one fell swoop, the 'Frisco trade in grain, the South American trade in nitrate, will pass into the hands or holds of the steamships. Huge cargo carriers, able to stow eight or ten thousand tons away with ease, will go lumbering steadily down the gulf and through the canal. They will range the western sea-board of the Americas, sweeping into their capacious maws every ounce of cargo, and stimulating production in an amazing way.

Presently also will come the petroleum-propelled ship, the electrically-engined ship, as the carriage of coal becomes more and more of a burden, while its price steadily rises. Meanwhile, the inventive genius of America will surely find some way of re-creating for herself a splendid Mercantile Marine. I cannot think that she will always be content to see all her vast carrying trade over-sea practically in the hands of Britain and foreigners. At present it seems to be evident to all, except the average Americans, that such efforts as have recently been made with that object in view are foredoomed to failure. Only one thing is required for the rehabilitation of the American Mercantile Marine, and that is, that owing to the rapid filling up of all uninhabited land on the American continent, the teeming millions along her sea-board shall turn their earnest attention to the possibilities of money-getting that there are in ship-owning and sailing. Then they will insist upon some reasonable laws being passed that shall help, not hinder, the expansion of American sea-traffic, and the thing will be as good as done.

That, however, will require some considerable time yet. Meanwhile, the sailing ships, wooden ships too, will probably linger longest in our North American colonies. But they too must disappear. Already they are feeling the pinch very sorely, with economically run tramp-steamers cutting them out everywhere. This is obvious now when the thrifty Norwegians are running tramp-steamers in lieu of the ramshackle old craft with which they have so long monopolized the lumber and ice trade. To a seaman the spectacle of steamers in the home ports discharging ice comes as something of a shock, for he remembers what class of vessels have always been used for this, perhaps the roughest of all the carrying trades known.

But the great work to be done is the dissemination of popular information with regard to maritime matters. To burn into the minds of our people at home what the merchant ship means to them; to make the villager understand that the cheap and abundant food, which may be purchased even in remotest inland hamlets, has been brought thus to his door from the other side of the world by the unceasing strenuous labours of seamen and the sleepless enterprise of ship-owners. I look earnestly for the day when every newspaper in the kingdom will be considered incomplete without its column of readable shipping matter--true tales of latter-day daring, of courage as high as any manifested in the attempt to destroy life in battle; when the British seaman shall no longer feel that he is as completely isolated from the thoughts and sympathies of his countrymen as if he were an inhabitant of another planet; when the British man-o'-war's man, whether he be blue-jacket or stoker, shall know of a truth that his friends at home realize what he is doing during his long absence from home: how he, for their sakes, in order that the steady stream of food-bearing ships from prolific lands far away shall never cease by day or by night through the years, keeps sleepless watch all round the world.

Let no one think that this is a small matter. The acquisition of knowledge like this is not only of the highest importance in itself, but it will bring with it a vast amount of cognate information that now is much neglected. Geography will become what it should be, a popular science, because the immense value of it will be recognized. Economical science will also assume an interest which it has long lacked for all but the minutest percentage of fairly well-educated people. Politically, such an education of the people will be of the highest value, preventing them from being led away by clap-trap and jargon, and enabling them to understand why our country has risen to its present enviable height of prosperity, and how essential it is to the well-being of every man, woman, and child in the community that the peaceful flow of over-sea traffic shall never be interrupted.

Beyond and above all this there is the liquidation of the debt due to the sailor; the recognition of the fact in practical ways that without him we should not merely be without at least half of what he has taught us to look upon as the necessities of life, necessities which less than a century ago were looked upon as the highest luxuries, but that we should be a feeble population of slaves groaning under the iron rule of some military continental despot, who would rob us of our very blood and marrow, and give us in return leave to live that we might toil for him and his satraps until, early worn out, we were flung aside to die and obtain that liberty in death that we were denied in life. We want to atone as far as we may for our long neglect, through ignorance, and by our united intelligent efforts to show that at last we have awakened to the fact that in our Mercantile Marine we possess the most magnificent heritage ever built up for a free people by the courage and endurance of its sons.

THE END.

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